He strode forward into the light surrounding the pool table. “Mind if I join the game?”
At the sound of his voice, Mallory groaned while the bartender turned his head to acknowledge the intrusion. “Bar’s closed,” he said.
Jack leaned an elbow on the wooden edge of the table and nodded at Mallory. “She looks like a customer to me.”
Mallory narrowed her gaze and shot him a scathing glance.
“She’s a guest of the house. You can come back tomorrow night. Drinks on the house.” The bartender turned his concentration back to Mallory, or rather, to her waist. He gripped his hands around the bare skin of her midriff, where her shirt had drifted upward.
Anger Jack hadn’t experienced in ages rushed to the surface along with another memory-of coming home early from school at age fifteen to find a stranger and his mother exiting the bedroom she shared with Jack’s father, the stranger’s hands on his mother’s waist as he helped her snap her pants closed.
But unlike his mother, Mallory didn’t giggle and lean closer. She stiffened and would have moved away but for the pool table in front of her and the bartender’s strong arms holding her in place. Whatever her earlier act, she was obviously through with the man now.
“Doesn’t look like she wants to be that kind of a guest.” Jack spoke through clenched teeth.
Sparks flashed in Mallory’s blue eyes, emotion and anger aimed at him. “
She turned her gaze to the bartender and fluttered her lashes in a gesture Jack had never witnessed from Mallory before. “Looks like my friend doesn’t know when a lady’s playing hard to get, Jimmy,” she said in a lazy drawl. But she casually moved his hand away from her waist.
“You know this guy?” The bartender jerked a finger Jack’s way. From the sneer on the man’s face, Jack figured any hope he’d had of gleaning information about Lederman was long gone.
“We work together.” Mallory let out a long-suffering sigh and took a step back from Jimmy, tripping over his sneakered feet and nearly toppling to the floor in the process. Jack tried to reach for her at the same time as the bartender but she lunged onto the pool table and steadied herself first.
“Oops.” She let out an un-Mallory-like laugh. “Those darn Long Island Iced Teas.” She batted her eyelashes again and glanced at Jack. “Did you know they have a drink named after this area? Well sort of this area. Long Island Iced Tea. He makes them extra special,” she said, smiling at the bartender. “Think I can have the recipe?”
“I think you’ve had enough.” Jack had no doubt she wasn’t drunk, just trying to keep the bartender off balance and intrigued. He stepped forward and grabbed her elbow before his competition could get to Mallory first.
“Don’t you think the lady can decide when she has or hasn’t had enough?” the bartender spoke.
Mallory bestowed her sweetest smile upon him. “A man who respects a lady’s mind. I like that.”
“Did you forget our early morning meeting?” Jack asked pointedly. “With Mr. Lederman?” He tossed Jimmy’s employer’s name into the mix and got the reaction he’d hoped for.
Jimmy stiffened. “You work with Lederman?”
Mallory clenched her jaw, clearly unhappy with Jack invading her territory. “He’s considering using my firm. I thought I mentioned that.”
“Before or after you pumped me for information?”
Mallory shrugged and smiled sweetly. “I’m a people watcher by nature. You wouldn’t hold that against me, would you? Tell you what, why don’t we meet up again when
Jack stifled a grunt but before he could speak, the bartender shook his head. “The boss’ll have my head for consorting with the guests,” he muttered. “Not that he wouldn’t appreciate your charms himself but I need this job.”
“Smart move,” Jack said, making note of his reference to Lederman’s taste for the ladies.
Jimmy scowled. “She’s all yours, buddy.”
“I’m not anyone’s,” Mallory muttered. “Especially his.”
Jack grinned. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying, do you sweetheart?”
The bartender cursed beneath his breath and headed back to the bar to clean up for the night. Obviously he didn’t like the idea of Jack getting the better of him, but when he put his testosterone aside, he knew his job came first.
Jack turned to his colleague. “Time to get you upstairs.” Without waiting for a reply he lifted her into his arms and over one shoulder. “See ya around,” he called out to the bartender who was still cursing and nursing his wounded pride.
Jimmy glanced over and caught sight of Jack’s caveman routine and Mallory’s flailing fists. He laughed hard. “Maybe you’re not so bad. You come by tomorrow,” he said to Jack. “Drinks are still on the house.”
Mallory punched helplessly at Jack’s back until the last shot hit a kidney.
Jack grunted. “You got it,” he called. “Maybe we can compare notes.”
“Put me down,” Mallory yelled at him.
The bartender laughed again. Jack left the bar and made a quick right to the bank of elevators. He had no desire to cause a scene in the lobby.
Once inside the private elevator, he deposited Mallory on her feet.
“Just in time.” She pulled down on her shirt and glared at him.
“I know.” Right before he’d freed her, he’d felt her soft hands inching inside the waistband of his jeans searching for the elastic on his underwear.
He burst out laughing. “An older brother teach you that dirty trick?”
She shook her head. “I’m an only child. And you were this close to singing soprano.” She held her thumb and forefinger together.
“I’d have to be wearing underwear for that weapon to work.”
Her eyebrows arched in surprise and her blue eyes darkened with the possibility he was telling the truth.
He leaned back against the chrome and mirrored wall.
A grin formed on her lips as she stepped closer. “Prove it.”
“What?”
Her fingers reached for the snap on his jeans as his breath caught in anticipation and desire. “You said no underwear. I want you to prove it.”
His groin, free from constraints except for the hard denim wanted to do just that, but he held on to her wrists and met her gaze.
Her face was inches from his, her warm breath with barely a hint of alcohol rushed over his skin.
“How’d you keep surfer boy’s hands off you?” he asked.
She tilted her head to the side. “Are you jealous? I admit he has a great body and a gorgeous tan, but…”
That did it. Jack silenced her with a kiss. It started slow but quickly blazed out of control. His tongue, her tongue, his groan, her heartfelt sigh-he couldn’t tell the difference as they melded together. Like a dying man at an oasis, he drank from her, taking all she offered, all she had to give. And he gave back in kind, until they parted, coming up for air.
Her dazed blue eyes opened wide. “You
He sucked in a deep breath of air. “Not a chance, sweetheart.” But his thudding heart called him a liar. He stepped back and contemplated her. “So how’d you keep the bartender talking and not groping?” He grasped for mundane conversation, anything to give him time to regain his equilibrium.
“I sat next to a huge potted plant in the corner, ordered drinks, nursed them while I inflated his ego, dumped them when he served other customers.”
He grinned. “You are something.”
She averted her eyes. “Why haven’t the doors opened yet?”
He glanced around for the first time and realized neither of them had pushed the button for their floor.
He punched in the button for the fifth floor. The mechanism kicked into gear and they began their ascent. “Elementary.”
“Then how come neither one of us thought of it?”
He reached out and fingered a strand of her hair. “Because we were distracted?”
